New York Health Insurance Exchange Launches

Website experienced glitches amid high traffic

By

Josh Dawsey

Updated Oct. 2, 2013 11:39 a.m. ET

Thousands of New Yorkers struggled Tuesday as they sought to use a balky new website that hosts the state's new health-insurance exchange, but officials pledged to fix the bugs and took heart that the site received unexpectedly high traffic on its first day.

"We haven't been able to make it available to every New Yorker who came to the web," said Donna Frescatore, director of New York's exchange, adding that many did gain access to the exchange.

The state's online marketplace, which opened for business as enrollment for insurance under the federal Affordable Care Act began around the U.S., was receiving upgrades to handle more traffic late Tuesday, Ms. Frescatore said. The website recorded more than 10 million hits, while about 9,000 people were able to shop. The site counts every hit, regardless of whether someone was able to get onto the site, a spokesman said.

Albany officials couldn't immediately provide a count of how many New Yorkers signed up. The debut of the website was just one aspect of the rollout of the state health-insurance exchange. The state held events at offices of local community groups and health centers, where counselors were deployed to sign people up. New York hopes to enroll 1.1 million people within three years. The enrollment period lasts until Dec. 31.

"This is going to be a slow ramp-up," said Paloma Izquierdo-Hernandez, chief executive at Urban Health Plan, a Bronx clinic that worked Tuesday to sign people up.

The state is spending $40 million on outreach and marketing as it contends with language and cultural barriers and that many residents don't know about the program.

"There's going to be a lot of confusion this week, and with the first couple months of the rollout," said James Napoli, an expert on the law who is senior counsel with the Washington law firm Proskauer Rose. "That's just a fundamental failing of the rollout right now. I just don't think there has been enough education of the general public to what the fundamentals are."

In New Jersey, where users enrolled as part of the federal exchange after Gov. Chris Christie declined to create a state-run exchange, Jersey City officials gathered around in an office Tuesday, trying to load software. Stacey Flanagan, director of the city's health and human services department, said she had two successes in 41 attempts at logging on.

The federal government said its systems had encountered problems as it served "unexpectedly high" volume but that the system worked for many people. In New Jersey, a spokeswoman for the state's department of health said it wasn't monitoring the exchange. The state licensed the health insurers and reviewed the rates, "but otherwise it's their marketplace," said a spokesman for the state Banking and Insurance Department.

As of 4 p.m. Tuesday, 167 people had successfully signed up for coverage on Connecticut's exchange, and the website site received 28,280 unique visitors. The call center also fielded 1,930 phone calls. "Today was not without its bumps, but as far as launches go for a project of this size, we were pleased," said Kevin Counihan, CEO of Access Health CT, in a news release.

In New York, Ms. Frescatore said she saw promising signs. The state's customer-service center received more than 5,000 calls. Most of the calls were residents asking whether they qualified for plans or state tax credits to help them afford coverage, she said.

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At Queens Central Library in Jamaica on Tuesday morning, resident Carmen Quintuna said she had been uninsured since 2008 and would buy insurance next week on the state exchange. "I was constantly worried about getting sick or hurt because I knew I couldn't afford any medication or treatment," she said.

Outside the Urban Health Plan in the Bronx, workers struggled to enroll people Tuesday. At least for one morning, media cameras and state officials outnumbered potential enrollees. Under the new system, lower-income New Yorkers would qualify for tax credits and subsidies to help them afford health insurance. Several people said they didn't understand the law or didn't qualify. Carmen Colon, 41, who was at the agency with her son, Rayden, 9, said she had "way too many questions" to make a decision. "They haven't been able to explain how it really works," she said.

Ms. Colon said she paid for insurance through her job and wasn't sure if the new plan would be cheaper, even with tax credits and subsidies.She left the clinic Tuesday without signing up.

In New Jersey, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop said the town's 55,000 uninsured would be targeted by 10 city workers. They canvassed streets with tablet computers Tuesday, where they greeted diners outside a Thai restaurant.

The city is "frustrated and challenged" by the state not embracing the law, Mr. Fulop said.

Ellen Broudy, 38 years old, called the law a "pocket changer." The freelance graphic designer said she paid more than $5,000 per month for insurance and expected that will be bill would be slashed. "I just dropped a ton of money on health insurance. I don't even want to think about how much I spent."

—Joseph De Avila, Heather Haddon and John Surico contributed to this article.

I am being thruthful. I am 62 and have been unemployed for 4 years. And to no avail have not been able to find employment and have been forced to apply for early retirement. I receive my first check from SS on November 29th. I have save money throughout the years and I have nearly exhausted my savings to survive. I had to withdraw dividends from my life insurance policy to pay my real estate taxes to save my house.

Thanks for your response to my comments. You have to earn 8900.00 per year or less to qualify for medicaid for a family of 1. I was on a low cost health plan that allowed me only 4 doctor visits per year and I was notified by Blue Cross of NEPA that my coverage expires on 12-31-13 and that it is mandatory that I go through the healthcare insurance marketplace exchange to see how much of a subsidy I qualify for and then get back to them and select new health care coverage.

This insurance BS is nothing but PROPAGANDA, I am privately insured and make less than 14,000.00 per year and my insurance company notified me yesterday and informed me that my coverage will expire on 12-31-13. They sent me 4 fancy brochures and I will tell you that the premiums are through the roof. I am ineligible for medicaid and may opt out of insurance all together. I can't afford those premiums even with a subsidy, so I may have to move into the woods and live in a tent. This is becoming a socialist country.

"10 million hits" Thats from people like myself repeatedly trying to access the website. I tried from 9AM to midnight and this morning. I called their so called hotline and waited almost an hour to be told to use the very "unavailable" website" The hotline reps are not well versed and really don't have much knowledge about the Marketplace. They implement a program that they are not even prepared for. And forget about online chat. That feature is DOWN!!!!!!

Actually all day its been down. The funny thing is they want to claim its a big success like Apple computers the difference Apple computers sales site goes down because of DEMAND here we have people being FORCED to buy on the exchange and then the exchange goes down. This is not overwhelming demand this is RATIONing this is USSA equivalent of Soviet era shortages at the markets for government supplied cheese. They are trying to paint this as a popular program that triggered the outage. ahahaha

At that income level, surely you qualify for Medicaid or one of the other of many, many programs that provide free or almost free care. When you say you "make" < $14K, a lot of high-earners can produce tax returns that show <$14K taxable income.

I am being thruthful. I am 62 and have been unemployed for 4 years. And to no avail have not been able to find employment and have been forced to apply for early retirement. I receive my first check from SS on November 29th. I have saved money throughout the years and I have nearly exhausted my savings to survive. I had to withdraw dividends from my life insurance policy to pay my real estate taxes to save my house. The only thing thing saving my butt right now is that I don't have a mortgage on my house. I may be forced to sell my home and as you well know this is not a sellers market.

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